Vanessa Cahill, an ACES graduating senior in ACE, majoring in policy, international trade and development, delivered this December’s ACES convocation speech. She said, "Due to the pandemic, I was unable to study a semester abroad as planned during my time at Illinois. This pushed me to buckle down and finish my degree by December to take a few months and explore new parts of the world before starting work. If ACES has shown me one thing, it is the endless opportunity in this industry. That being said, I am not limiting myself to working in America.

The ACES community is filled with passionate people – some in the spotlight and some behind the scenes. They care about and focus on world-changing work like:

I grew up in Kenya, just outside the capital city, in a community of smallholder farmers, and have experienced first-hand what it is like to grow food for subsistence. This has shaped my appreciation for agriculture and the role it plays to combat hunger and improve the livelihoods of communities around the world.

Dietetics students from the Food Science and Human Nutrition (FSHN) 329 Communication in Nutrition course celebrated National Nutrition Month by hosting a National Nutrition Month Fair in the Student Dining and Residential Programs Building (SDRP) on March 7. The booths covered various nutrition topics for college students, including Fad Diets, the Flexitarian Diet, Intuitive Eating, Alcohol, Meal Planning, Gut Health, Cannabis Nutrition for COVID-19 Prevention and Recovery, Sports Nutrition, and Eating on a Budget.

When Eweek shows up in my inbox, I’m all in. I scroll to the “Research Participation” section first every time. In my two years at the University of Illinois, I’ve developed, well, a taste for taste testing food. In the name of research, of course.

It started with cookies. All I had to do was answer some questions online to take part in a Food Science & Human Nutrition (FSHN) study.

Nutrition students and dietetics practitioners came together last month to consider diversity through a lens everyone can relate to – food.

Co-hosted by the Eastern Illinois Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (EIAND) and the Nutritional Sciences Graduate Student Association (NSGSA), the event was planned and executed entirely by students in the University of Illinois’ dietetic internship program.

After a long 48-hour journey from Chicago to Freetown, I landed safely on the shores of my beloved homeland, Sierra Leone. I traveled all night from Freetown to Njala Campus, where I had a tough night due to the hot and humid weather. But at last, the journey ended joyfully.

Salam! My name is Sarah and during the spring semester I had the opportunity to complete research in Morocco thanks to the ACES Global Food Security grant. I was excited to conduct research in Rabat, Morocco, focused on improving food security in arid countries. My goals are further motivated by climate change, as it contributes to the creation of more extreme weather events and conditions.